Carciofi alla Giudia and other experiments

I’ve been one frustrated little food blogger lately. Some dishes of last week had good pictures, some had good stories, and some actually tasted good. But none had all three qualities that inspire you to write. It all started with my attempt to make carciofi alla giudia (deep-fried artichokes). I fell under the spell of this rose bud looking dish on our trip to Rome, but have never attempted it at home until a recent post on chowhound’s home cooking board brought back the memories of crispy leaves and juicy artichoke hearts. After being haunted by artichokes for weeks, I finally decided to give it a try. To be on the safe side, I consulted a few more authorities on this matter: Ilva at Lucullian Delights, and Marcella Hazan’s book. I figured how hard can it be – trim artichokes and put them in hot oil? Others are doing it. Why can’t I? So what if I’ve never cooked artichokes before and I have a serious phobia of deep-frying at home. There is really nothing like peer pressure and trying to recreate a meal from my travels to make me lose my head.

The good news is that I learned to trim artichokes. The bad news is that dropping artichokes covered in lemon juice into hot oil resulted in an oil explosion and the biggest mess my kitchen has ever seen. I was lucky my oil didn’t inflame! So, kids don’t try this at home. I ended up with a burnt artichoke and half an hour of degreasing my stove, counter and floor. So the story of “Helen conquers her fear of deep-frying and learns to cook artichokes to bring back the taste of Rome” turns into “Helen almost sets her kitchen on fire in spite of having the guidance of 3 recipes.” Good thing I made some gnocchi with roasted tomato sauce. They made a good comfort food dish after the artichoke disaster.

But I was determined not to give up on artichokes. I got some more the next day and decided to braise them. By now, I was getting pretty good at trimming them (I went through a lot of artichokes this weekend) and this time the cooking was less dramatic. I poured a little oil into a hot pan, added artichokes, garlic, parsley, lemon zest, juice and water. Then covered the pan and cooked on low for 10 minutes. This time, the artichokes were quite decent, but not much better than the canned. So I am still on a search for a great artichoke recipe. If you know of one, please let me know.

My other cooking experiment involved making pissaladière (a Provencal pizza with caramelized onions, olives, and anchovies). For the first time in my life, I botched up the toppings, not the dough. I am still in shock about it. For the dough, I used Reinhart’s recipe for focaccia and it turned out extremely well, but by the time the dough was done, the toppings got a little burnt (anchovies got particularly nasty). Of course, getting a recipe would probably be a good idea, but who thought you’d need a recipe for toppings!

Luckily, I saved half of the dough and made a regular focaccia with it tonight. It was unbelievably close to what I had in Liguria.

We put some fig jam, prosciutto, cheddar, and leftover caramelized onions inside and made grilled sandwiches that were so good, they redeemed all the weekend’s disasters.

Sometimes, leftovers simply taste good, and sometimes they give you a second chance.